Pasko na (medyo)

So this week has overall be a pretty simple week. I had exchanges with our Zone Leader Elder Durbin and it's clearly becoming closer to Christmas. Though I don't think Christmas can really be exactly the same as back home, it's nice to see some decorations coming up.

Tuesday - 

We had district council in the morning like usually. After that we did our studies and then continued throughout the rest of the day.  We ended up giving three lessons overall. One to our less active family, one to our recent convert Carmelita, and a finally one to our new investigators the Mendoza family. That really ended up being the day.

Wednesday - 

On Wednesday we traveled to the ends of our area in order to get to this barangay called Fugu. It basically takes what seems like an hour to get there. We went to Fugu because we got a referral from a member. We met up with her (along with our pretty regular fellowshipper Dan) and headed over to the house of her neighbor/boss named Roldan Gaoat. HIs house was by far the nicest house that we've ever taught in, but it turns out that he owns a catering business which explains it. He also even had a car, which is almost unheard of around here. Usually people just have some type of "motor" (a term referring to either a scooter or motorcycle) or a tricey. Anyways, we taught him the first lesson and he seemed very interested. He also seemed to retain some knowledge from his learnings as a member of the Catholic church.  A lot of the time people claim to be part of a certain denomination or sect of religion but never tend to practice it, so when you find someone fairly knowledgeable it's a good sign. He kind of has the mannerisms of a "bakla" in the inflection of his voice and how he holds himself, but he also seemed very interested and friendly. Overall it was a good lesson and I think he's actually going to be a very good investigator. 

Later we went back to Centro (or kind of the main part of the Ballesteros area) and gave a lesson to our other investigator Junior Tolentino and talked to some recent converts of Elder Viador's, both of which events went good.  Also at some point during the day a whole bunch of high school aged girls wanted to take a picture with me because I was white. So that kind of thing also happens here.

Thursday - 

So we had exchanges on Thursday. I ended up going throughout the day with our Zone Leader Elder Durbin. I had to lead the area and plan the day out and everything. I also had to lead lessons (which basically means open and closing them and choosing the direction they go) which was a little difficult but fine. Overall, it was a pretty good day and I'd say I learned a lot. Sometimes it's just nice to go with someone who knows both English and Tagalog really well to help explain things. Also since he's zone leader he had some packages for me and Elder Butler which are ALWAYS great to receive. I also learned from him that our Philippines mission is likely the most rural. He said that our mission has 2 cities in it, Laoag and Vigan and that all the other Philippines missions have 8-10 cities in them. So that kind of just puts things in perspective a little bit I guess. 

Anyways, for the day we ended up going back to the home of Brother Dan-dan (Roldan) back in Fugu because we scheduled to come back. It was another good lesson and we even gave the baptismal invitation. He immediately said "Yes" but also expressed a little concern afterwards wondering if our church "accepts people a 'little different" like him. So he didn't exactly say he's gay, but I'm assuming that if he does intend on becoming baptized he might need to do a little life changing. Either way, teaching and lessons with him seem to be going good. Also he invited some of his neighbors who are interested into the lessons too. He's also their boss and we now have some new investigators because of them.

After Roldan we went back to the Mendoza "family" (I put this in quotations because basically the only one that listens or is around the whole time is named Ela). The lesson itself went good and near the end we found out that we have a double "live-in" situation. Apparently, Ela lives in the same building with her boyfriend (she's 17) and her mom also lives in the same building with her new husband that she's not technically married to. So even though the lessons are going good, it's definitely a problem that needs addressing.

Friday - 

This was a really unproductive day. It started by using up some of the time in the morning by returning companionships back to their areas after the exchanges. After that we ate and then went to the computer shop in order to watch a "Light the World" video specifically made for the missionaries. We were told that it was important enough that we could go on some time not during our p-day. So it was good and cool and all. Basically, for the rest of the day, I did lots of study and extra study while my companion slept...  I mean we did spend a lot of time on the Light the World stuff and some forums made for missionaries to share ideas, but we wasted more time than I wanted. Later we ate dinner with the Lacsi family and that was the day.

Saturday - 

We gave the third lesson to Roldan after having members feed us lunch in Abulug which is in the area of the other elders. It was way nicer in their area than ours so that's just something interesting to note. Basically that was the day. Also Elder Butler and Magadia also managed to lock the keys inside our apartment. This has also happened before, but we just opened the window  and reached the doorknob to open it up. Unfortunately, this time the window was also locked. It was kind of concerning. Eventually after my companion messed with the window a little bit, I finally got up and tried something. I ended up just forcing the window out of the frame by pushing really hard and we got in. Then we put the window back in place.

Sunday - 

During sacrament meeting we had the primary program which was awesome. It was all done in English and had lots of singing. The children actually seemed to have better English than most adults here and it was awesome.

After church Elder Butler ended up making a Thanksgiving style lunch from the supplies his family sent him. We ate mashed potatoes with gravy and chicken and it was great.

Later we went out for work with fellowshippers and ended up going to some less actives, our investigator Junior, and some recent converts.

Monday -

Today has basically been a typical p-day except this morning we went to Abulug to practice a skit/dance for a Christmas Conference that we'll apparently be performing. The practice basically consisted of the sister missionaries bossing people around because we couldn't take the dancing very seriously.

Pictures - 

pictures of us in flowers, a picture on exchanges with Elder Durbin and teaching Roldan (bottom left), my package, the Christmas tree at the house of some members that fed us in the area of the other elders (like really this was a way abnormally nice house, I haven't seen anything like it and I don't think I will see another any time soon), then some pictures of the armless member named "Ferds" that sometimes hates us because we're "Amerikano" or other times is fine with us,  but anyways in the picture we just put all our bags on him and made him carry them, and finally just a weird looking picture of Elder Viador.

Kaarawan mga Binyag

It has been a pretty decent week. Overall, it was a pretty typical week except for we had two baptisms on my birthday on Saturday. There's not many ways to celebrate your birthday in the mission field in the Philippines but a couple baptisms isn't so bad.

Tuesday - 

This was a typical Tuesday that consisted of district council and our studies in the morning and then work later in the day. We planned to give/teach six lessons but only ended up giving two of them. Both of which were to our investigators that were getting baptized later in the week. The rest of the time in the day was probably used up while shuffling around trying to teach the people we planned for, but not finding any of them at their homes.

Wednesday -

On Wednesday we had district exchanges. This meant Elder Butler and I just swapped companions and had to lead our areas. So I was with Elder Magadia the whole day. It was a little different because he actually speaks okay English so it wasn't super hard to communicate the whole time, but also during lessons he acted like he didn't know how to do missionary work because it was my turn to "lead the area".. which I guess he thinks means to let the American person (that doesn't know much Tagalog) do whole lessons without much assistance. I also planned the whole day. We ended up traveling super far to Palloc (the end of my area) and tried to give lessons to some of our investigators. I developed a plan to teach 8 people for the day, but no one was there. Even the people that we placed as back-up plans weren't there. We ended up giving a lesson to a random member we found, and to this lady who's the aunt of someone we planned for. She didn't really seem to interested. Also later, we found two new investigators. We didn't really have to go out seeking them just cause they were like "Hey! We love Mormons! Come back later." It was like a free investigator. Overall, it was a long day with a lot of walking and not a lot of talking.

Thursday - 

We had our weekly planning on Thursday and our personal study which ended up taking most of the morning. We ended up getting out at 3:00ish but only ended up giving two lessons. The first lesson we gave was to the Mendoza family (the people that said "come back we love Mormons") and it was a pretty good lesson, except for the wife several times began breastfeeding in the middle of the lesson. It's a little difficult for me to try and share the gospel when something like that is going on, but we managed. I think that's a pretty normal type of behavior here though. After that we also taught another lesson to some recent converts as well. Also, near the end of the day there was this little girl that only spoke Illicano, and was trying to play some patty-cake type game with me even though I didn't understand her. It was fun and cute and all until like halfway through the game she turned around and threw up a little, and then we just continued right afterwards. 

Friday - 

We did service from 8:00-4:00. After that we did our studies and had a "dinner appointment" afterward. The dinner appointment ended up being a little soup with bananas, rice ball things, potato textured something, and "Orbeez." I call them "Orbeez" because they were that texture and I don't exactly know what they were. I think they were just some type of jelly. The soup was also scolding hot. So that's great too, and that really ended up being the day.

Saturday - 

Saturday basically consisted of one lesson with our investigator Jessa Blanco in the morning, and the rest of the day was revolving around our two baptisms. For our baptisms we first had our investigator Sherry Ann Unciano baptized. She's a 15 year old girl that took lessons from some sister missionaries recently but never seemed to progress. Randomly, she started coming back to church by herself and we taught her all the lessons. Our other investigator was Sister Carmelita Bunnao. She's 40 years old and we've been teaching her from the start. Some of her kids were already members so we just had to convert her too. It was a good set of birthday baptisms. Elder Viador did the baptizing in the ocean because the faucet in the baptismal font pumped dirty water from irrigation or something.

Also, later at night Elder Butler made "fajita's" for dinner since it was my birthday and all. They don't have tortillas here so we ended up using some type of Filipino roll. Overall it was pretty good and tasted like normal fajitas except for the whole bread thing. Also it was super expensive for him to make, especially on a missionary fund. I guess we'll have to stick to corned beef and rice.

Sunday - 

We had church and studies and a couple of lessons. That was all

Pictures  - 

Should consist of... pictures at a dinner appointment, service (some intentionally cringey of course), pictures from the baptism, and the dirty baptismal font water.

Staying Alive

This week overall has been pretty average. I can't say anything super out of the ordinary happened. We had some service, and finding and I got a package this week as well.. so I guess it was pretty decent.

Tuesday - 

So on Tuesday, the day started out with our zone meeting. The whole zone met up in our area of Ballesteros. Usually we tend to meet here because we are a little more centrally located  and have a pretty nice church building, especially compared to the mere meeting houses in other areas. Anyways, it was a pretty good meeting and we got to meet the new zone leader Elder Santillian who's replacing Elder Willoughby (gone but never forgotten, RIP). After that, we went throughout the day as normal with all our studies and then ended up giving two lessons. One to the less active Repaje family and one to our investigator Carmelita. The Pascual family that we were going to teach ended up not anywhere to be found, so we did a little finding and handed out a couple pamphlets to some people. We'll probably catch up with them later.

Wednesday - 

We had a lot planned on Wednesday.we had 7 lessons planned and two backup lessons prepared but only ended up teaching 3 lessons. One of which wasn't even planned originally. Also Elder Santiallian was on exchanges with Elder Butler so we got to get to know him a lot better. He's Filipino but is VERY good at English.. He also talked to us about console video games which is very rare to hear about around here. Overall, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. 

Anyways we started our day by giving a lesson to a this man named Brother Salvador. He's like 67 and has two handicap adult children. He also likes to speak a lot of Illicano and not as much Tagalog. Despite of that, we gave him a lesson and it actually felt very good. Following that we gave a lesson to our investigator Flordelita that we hadn't seen in a while. After that, we gave a lesson to a new investigator Junior Tolentino and then finally ended the day at the home of two recent converts. Unfortunately we didn't give a lesson to them though. We just talked for a bit.

Thursday - 

This was also a weird day where we planned a lot but only ended up giving two lessons because people weren't there.. or things took longer than we expected. We ended up giving a lesson to the less active Blanco family in this area called Mabuttal which was pretty far away.  After that we tried to do a little finding but didn't find much success. And then later we gave another lesson to Sister Carmelita, our investigator. That was pretty much that day.

Friday - 

On Friday we did service all morning. From about 8:00-3:00. After that, we then helped the other elders prepare the baptismal font at the church for the baptism but it turns out the font was pumping brown water because of irrigation or something.. so it didn't actually even help. That was the whole day pretty much.

Saturday - 

On Saturday we had a "special" General Priesthood session from about 9:00-11:00 where we reviewed some of the new Sunday schedule stuff that was talked about in conference. They also talked a lot about potentially becoming a stake soon and stuff here in Ballesteros. After the meeting we then had interviews and stuff with President Peterson from 11:00-2:00. After that, Elder Viador and I hurried and went and gave a lesson to our investigator Sherry Ann and then returned to the church to watch the other Elders' baptism in the ocean because the font was gross. After the baptism we all had a dinner appointment with the District President Credo too.

Sunday - 

We woke up early in the morning to go to the house of our investigator Flordelita to bring her to church. When we got there she wasn't there. She must have bailed. Sometimes it's hard to tell if people here are actually interested in your message or just nice.. Also, it's super difficult to get people to keep there commitments. Anways, we then went to church, did our studies, gave a lesson to Sherry Ann and then gave a lesson to Trickia and Rhea. We tried to also give a lesson to Carmelita but she was sick.

Pictures - 

Should include... pictures near the ocean with Elder Viador and our fellowshipper Dan, eating with Elder Santiallian, pictures from finding in Mabuttal (one of which I look super cringey but I don't care because the tree looks cool), our service project, a rip-off mickey mouse product, a shirt and "lego" set I got in a package from home, and the set up of my desk.